“Gaining,” she whispered. “Fifty yards to go!”
Again moments passed and again she whispered, “Gaining. Thirty yards.”
A third time she whispered, “Twenty yards.”
After that it was a quiet, muscle-straining, heart-breaking, silent battle, which caused her very senses to reel. Indeed at times she appeared conscious of only one thing, the mechanical swing of her arms, the kick, kick of her feet. They seemed but mechanical attachments run by some electrical power.
When at last the boat loomed black and large on the crest of a wave just above her she had barely enough brain energy left to order her arms into a new motion.
Striking upward with her right hand, she gripped the craft’s side. The next instant, with a superhuman effort, without overturning it she threw herself into the boat, there to fall panting across a seat.
“Wha—what a battle!” she gasped. “But I won! I won!”
For two minutes she lay there motionless. Then, drawing herself stiffly up to a sitting position, she adjusted the oars to their oarlocks and, bending forward, threw all her magnificent strength into the business of battling the waves and bringing the boat safely ashore.
There are few crafts more capable of riding a stormy sea than is a clinker-built rowboat. Light as a cork, it rides the waves like a seagull. Florence was not long in finding this out. Her trip ashore was one of joyous triumph. She had fought a hard physical battle and won. This was her hour of triumph. Her lips thrilled a “Hi-le-hi-le-hi-lo” which was heard with delight by her friends on land. Her bare arms worked like twin levers to a powerful engine, as she brought the boat around and shot it toward shore.
A moment for rejoicing, two for dressing, then they all three tumbled into the boat to make the tossing trip round the wall to shore on the other side.